


Drunk Girl

by Hollandoodle



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alpha Male Sandor, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Based on a Taylor Swift Song, Drunk Girl, Drunk Sansa Stark, Exactly The Way We Like Him, F/M, Ficlet, How To Tell A Man From A Boy, One Shot, Unknown Number, sansan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-06
Updated: 2018-09-06
Packaged: 2019-07-07 13:15:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,306
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15908997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hollandoodle/pseuds/Hollandoodle
Summary: Fresh off a break up from you-know-who, Sansa heads out on the town for a night of forgetting with Arya, who soon abandons her sister to a fate unknown.Based on the Chris Janson song "Drunk Girl"





	Drunk Girl

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LadyCleganeofTheNorth](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyCleganeofTheNorth/gifts).



> Please take a gander at this song, since it's what this ficlet is based off of:
> 
>  ["Drunk Girl" by Chris Janson](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TC6zXx4V-E)
> 
> Many thanks to [LadyCleganeofTheNorth](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyCleganeofTheNorth/pseuds/LadyCleganeofTheNorth) for the idea of turning this song into a Sansan. Because, obviously, how could we not?!
> 
> Many thanks to my readers!

 

 

“Are you sure you’re okay?”

Sansa looked over at her dad, sitting beside her on the top step off her parents porch just outside of town. He looked the part of the dad – concern tinged with love, his hands clasped tightly between his knees. His hair, always unfashionably long and somewhat straggly much to her mother’s dismay, only added to his worried appearance. 

_ Unkempt _ , she decided the descriptor was. Sansa supposed he looked nearly as bad as she felt.

“I’ll be fine, Dad. Joff is just…” 

Her voice trailed off as she realized she didn’t really know what Joff was. How best does one describe to one’s father that said fiance had decided to take an unannounced trip to the Bahamas? And with the neighbor girl, no less.

Sansa sighed.

“Joff and I are done, but I’m okay with it. I’m over it.”

Ned Stark scoffed quietly, and Sansa turned her head away so he wouldn’t see the untruth in her eyes.

“Six days is awfully fast to get over five years of history, Sansa,” he said, his voice almost chiding. But she knew he was right.

Still, she could at least keep up the pretense until it was true.

“I’m going out with Arya tonight,” she prevaricated, standing up and brushing off her dusty jeans. 

Casually lifting her bright red hair off her face, she aimed a smile at him. Even she could feel it was overly bright. 

“It’s been a long time since you two did anything together,” he replied with a nod as he stood. A step below her now, Sansa had to look down a couple inches to see his face and remembered how shocked he was when just a few years prior, his oldest daughter had somehow sprouted several inches over the course of one summer, coming nearly eye to eye with her father. 

“Tully genes,” her mother had explained, noting how tall Uncle Brynden was, and how even Robb, who took after the Tully coloring, had done the same thing--now standing several inches above Ned.

“It  _ has _ been a long time, but we’ll have fun,” Sansa assured him now, reaching out with the wave of memories and accompanying emotions to hug the man who would forever be her rock. As his arms came around her, he sighed into her shoulder.

“Sansa, you need to find a man who is brave, gentle and strong. Not –”

“ _ Yes _ dad,” she said, cutting him off with a squeezing hug. He had never outright voiced his opinion of Joffrey, but neither had he openly supported the relationship. That was telling, considering how much camaraderie appeared between him and Arya’s boyfriend Gendry almost from the moment they had met.

“A man,” he continued regardless, rubbing her back once before setting her apart from him to look her in the eye. “Not a boy, subject to his whims and fancies. I’ve seen you set aside so many times over the last five years –” Sansa nodded, but inside she wanted to run away from the truth of his words, “– and I’m done seeing my daughter treated that way.”

He pursed his lips and pushed his hands into the pockets of his jeans, his telltale sign that he had said his peace. Sansa nodded, blinking back tears as she turned to enter the house. Her mother was inside preparing dinner, and she had to get ready for her night out with Arya.

“A man, Sansa,” Ned said after her. “Not a boy. You’ll know him by his actions.”

Tossing back another nod, she opened the sliding screen door and disappeared inside.

• ❤ •

 “Finish your drink, Sans--we’re headed somewhere else,” Arya said, just loud enough over the speaker next to Sansa for her to hear. Feeling like she really didn’t have an argument for not doing what her sister said, she lifted the chilled glass and tipped the small amount of alcohol into her mouth, feeling the cold, refreshing citrus drink cool her parched throat.

The night had been long already, and truth be told, Sansa was more than ready to get her heels off. Five inches of red stiletto might not have been the best choice for a night of bar hopping, but, as Arya had said, they had garnered them more than a couple free drinks already.

Aware that the night was progressing in a way she hadn’t anticipated, Sansa refused to focus on what those free drinks might say about her.

As she rose from her seat she tugged down the bottom of her fitted dress, pulling the hem closer to her knees although aware somewhere in her mind that it didn’t have the extra fabric to actually reach all the way down. The dress had been an impulse buy – somewhere between Woman On The Town and Girl Next Door. The fist-sized red roses perfectly matched her high heels, while the jet black background and off the shoulder straps said she was a woman who meant business. Men had been taking notice of her all night, and constantly in the back of her mind she set them on the scale Ned had built for her – man or boy.

So far, none of them had measured up.

Not that she would have done anything, if any of them had indeed shown themselves to be more man than boy.  _ Too many drinks _ , she reasoned with herself as she allowed the much shorter Arya to drag her out of the establishment. 

Also in her mind was the thought,  _ I didn’t even have a chance to dance. _ And with that thought came another –  _ Wait, I wanted to dance? _

When they arrived at the fourth bar of the night – or was it the fifth? – a drink appeared in Sansa’s hand, and because it was Arya’s that had placed it there, she happily sipped it while sliding her bottom into a counter height chair at a small round table. Placing her clutch beside her drink, she smiled down at her sister, noting their matching stamps that had accompanied all the cover charges Arya had forked out for them to enter the buildings.

_ Five _ , she counted. So they were on their fifth bar. For some reason that made her giggle.

“I’m going to the loo,” Arya said from somewhere off to the side, and Sansa vaguely heard her sister inquire whether she would be alright alone. A wave of her stamp-bedazzled hand sent Arya off in one direction, while Sansa’s gaze veered the other.

By that point in the evening she could barely remember what had driven her to take her sister up on her offer. There was the prospect of fun, which wasn’t something she would have bundled with words like Arya and Bar. But somehow she did find herself having a good time, and as she sipped yet another fruity concoction through a tiny straw, she smiled slightly to herself, watching the mass of bodies moving together like a flock of country starlings on the dance floor.

What would it feel like, she wondered idly, to be one of them? As she slid her fingers over the condensation on her glass, she imagined what it would be like to take flight, to go wherever the wind took her, to have not a care in the world other than how not to get trampled when the horde came to roost? To not have to worry about rent and a job and family; about maintaining friendships and relationships; and about backstabbing fiances, the eye socket of one in particular she could envision pushing one of the heels of her stilettos through.

A shiver rattled her drink and she lifted it once more, only to find it empty now. When had she finished it? Blinking several times, she found her brain not working well enough to puzzle that out, so she attempted to scan the crowd for a server and then remembered she would need to brave the dancing horde of starlings to order another drink at the bar. Upbeat country pop blared from the speaker beside her, its nearly deafening cacophony jarring in her ears.

_ Shoot _ . Where was Arya when she needed her sister?

Ah. The loo. Well, it looked like Sansa was on her own. 

Rising, she made sure she could still stand in her stilettos, wavering for just a moment with her damp hand on the edge of the high table. When she was certain she could remain upright after letting go of the surface, she lifted her chin, took a deep breath, and took the first few steps that would take her away from the offensive speaker and through the horde.

• ❤ •

 Sandor followed the woman at a distance, picking up the hard little purse she had left on the table. She’d be needing it, after all, wherever she happened to go next.

He wasn’t sure what had led him to observe her throughout the short time she had been in Bronn’s bar. It could have been that she was the most beautiful woman there, with her fiery hair and legs a mile long – made even longer by those insane heels she had cupping her slender feet. Or it could have been the paleness of her shoulders above the low neckline of the siren’s dress she wore.

Or it might have been that she was just the most gorgeous woman he had ever seen, hands down, and he wasn’t going to stand around and watch some dumbass college co-ed ruin whatever reason it was that had brought her here tonight.

He had seen the small brunette she had come in with, but who was nowhere to be seen now. And it had been long enough that Sandor thought even the redhead would know it was unlikely the brunette was coming back. So why was she here? Why was she  _ still _ here, if her companion had abandoned her?

The way he saw it was there were two possibilities. With the way the brunette had appeared to be taking care of the redhead, either the beautiful woman was enjoying her bachelorette party – for two, apparently – or she had just been through a breakup.

An awful breakup, if that’s what had led her to dress the way she did, leaving her hair falling over one shoulder and seducing every man in the bar simply with her presence. And the kicker was, she looked oblivious to that fact.

So yes – either she was madly in love and about to be married, or she was so jaded with love and relationships that men didn’t matter to her.

He prayed it was the latter, though he kept himself at a good distance from her.

He just didn’t want to think about her as otherwise attached to some unnamed male. Even a hint of the thought made Sandor’s heart rate increase, and he chose to ignore the wave of purely male possessiveness that washed over his conscience like a fog rolling over hills.

But then… she stopped once she was inside the crowd of gyrating bodies, when he stood just off the edge of the dance floor. At first he thought she might have sensed someone was following her, and that if she turned around she would see his hulking, scarred self and search her non-existent pockets for non-existent pepper spray.

Except she didn’t, and instead he watched the portions of her he could see – the top of her head, the side of her exposed neck, those bare shoulders – as they began to move.

First it was a simple side to side tilt of her head, soon joined by the swaying of her shoulders as her hair slipped down her back in a molten waterfall of color beneath the dim lights. Then the crowd parted and Sandor caught a glimpse, just for a moment, of her hourglass hips swaying in such a way that he knew would hypnotise him had the crowd not immediately moved back to block his view.

_ Damn _ . He was stuck. Caught. Hook, line and sinker. There was no way he could let this woman out of his sight as long as the brunette continued to remain absent from the picture.

Sandor didn’t know exactly how long he stood there holding the woman’s purse. As he watched she got more into the music, no matter what tempo of song happened to be on. When it sped up she gyrated like the rest of them, laughing and singing loudly with the women – and sometimes men – around her, even if she obviously didn’t know the words. 

And at times it seemed like the little sleeves of her dress were going to slip down her upper arms and she was going to fall out of the front of the dress, much to the delight of the men around her. More than once Sandor felt a rumble in his throat, shocked to realize he was growling ineffectually at the jocks ogling her body on the dance floor.

Then she closed her eyes as the music slowed, signalling the impending end of the evening, the last call for alcohol and when Bronn would ring the bell telling people to down their drinks and get the hell out of his bar. 

Slowly she swayed, wrapping her arms around her middle as a soft smile played at her lips. With her eyes closed she couldn’t see the couples slowly disappearing off the floor, couldn’t see the women around her hug and part ways, or the single men who gave her one last longing glance before leaving with their cronies.

There was a stumble and Sandor stepped forward, though she instantly righted herself, both hands coming out to her sides as though she was on a tightrope and needed them for balance. Once righted, she went back to her gentle swaying, again closing her eyes and listening to the growing quiet beneath the twinkling lights above her.

She didn’t see the man who remained, the one who came up behind her and laid his hands gently on her hips as she rocked on the dance floor to the soft song that usually ended the night at the bar. Sandor did, and off to the side with her purse he remained vigilant, his fingers digging into the hard material in his hand. 

The woman didn’t balk at the man’s touch, which led Sandor to think for just a moment that it was a good thing he hadn’t approached her, since it seemed like she was a woman who would accept advances from any corner that offered them.

He was perhaps a heartbeat away from dropping her purse on the nearest table and departing when he saw the way her shoulders stiffened and her body come to a stop. Her eyes opened as she looked down at the hands that had slid around the front, coming to rest indecently close to the juncture of her thighs, on the rounded curves of her hip bones. 

Pausing mid-turn, Sandor watched the scene unfold before him.

Her face turned towards Sandor, her eyes not quite reaching him as she whirled around, jerking herself out of the man’s grasp. 

“Hey!” she half yelled, half mumbled, her voice impacted by the amount of alcohol she had imbibed. 

The man merely smiled down at her as he reached once again for her hips, the look on his face clearly one of predator who had marked his prey for conquest. He stepped towards her at the same time she stepped back, stumbling on those ridiculous heels of hers.

She went down, the man bent to help her back to her feet, but Sandor was already striding over, watching her clumsily attempt to scramble backwards as she repeatedly told the slimy asshole –  _ her _ words – to get the hell away from her. 

“Listen to her,” Sandor demanded, his voice like gravel on gravel as the man turned to look up at him. After a brief moment of shock, the man’s eyes dropped to the Staff t-shirt Sandor wore and he smiled. It was apparent this man had also had too many drinks. His eyes were glassy and his face was flushed, signs only detected in the dim light when Sandor approached and towered over him very closely.

“Hey bro,” the man said, smacking Sandor in the chest good-naturedly with the back of his hand. “I was just helping the lady. You know – ‘cause she fell.”

He said it like it explained everything, but Sandor was seeing red. Red hair, red shoes, the short glimpse of red panties he’d gotten as she paused mid-scramble to attempt to focus on the two men who stood above her. 

But it was the red hot anger that was talking when he grabbed the front of the man’s shirt, wiping the smile off his face as he lifted enough that the man went up on his toes.

“Was pawing her like an animal what you call  _ helping _ her?” he sneered, pulling the guy’s face close to his. 

Of course, he knew this was one of the most intimidating moves he kept in his pocket for creeps like this. In his time as security at Bronn’s bar there hadn’t been a single man yet who could hold himself up against Sandor’s sheer size when it was paired with an up close and personal glimpse of the harsh scarring that obliterated the ride side of his cheek, forehead, and scalp. Even worse was when he happened to have his hair flung over to the other side, so they could see the curled, uneven shell of his ear. He almost liked to imagine the movement in their throats was them swallowing back a cry of shock.

_ Men _ – true men were few and far between these days. These pussies were all about nothing more than finding easy victims, such as the woman on the floor beside them.

“Hey, dude – I wasn’t – I mean –” The man swallowed, glancing down at the redhead where she was holding a hand to her forehead, tucking her knees together as she sat upright on the floor. Sandor was glad for her moment of remembered modesty.

“Get the fuck out,” he growled, bringing the guy’s face back around with his tone. He couldn’t be sure if the shaking he felt in his arm was from the barely restrained fury he wanted to unleash on the scum he now held, or fear radiating off of said scum. Either way, it was obvious the man knew he was in a dangerous position.

The instant Sandor released his shirt the man turned tail and ran, not even looking back as the door of the bar swung shut behind him.

• ❤ •

Sansa remembered laying back against the dance floor, feeling the cold surface against the back of her bare shoulders for just a short moment before she was lifted into the air, one arm beneath her shoulders and the other cradling her behind her knees.

It was such an odd sensation, being carried like that, that she couldn’t find it in herself to balk at the idea that someone was handling her in such a manner. There were too many thoughts going through her mind.

_ I’m too tall to be carried like this.  _

_ I haven’t been cradled in someone’s arms likely since I was a kid. _

_ This is certainly no boy carrying me. This has to be a man. _

She heard voices as she simply remained limp in his arms, one voice coming from above her – the man who carried her – and one from somewhere off to the side.

“Here, man. There was a license in her purse.”  _ My purse? _ “Says she lives in Winterfell, so are you gonna take her home?”

A grunt from the man holding her was the reply given, and she would have laughed if she didn’t feel so incredibly tired. The arms holding her were warm, as was the chest her side was pressed up against. So much warmer than that cold floor had been.

“Dude, she can’t stay here. Margaery would throw a fit, you know that –”

“I know,” the man holding her said, and Sansa felt goosebumps rise on her skin at the sound of it.  _ That voice _ – it was so deep, so… 

So not like Joffrey’s at all. It seemed to be an entity unto itself, reaching into her body and curling around her insides, permeating the walls of their torsos where they met, their clothing the only barrier between them. 

Sansa attempted to blink but it was too hard, and her exasperated response to her lack of movement came out as a tired sigh. 

The silence between the two men seemed to grow, but then she felt a swipe of a thumb against her bare shoulder, and it was enough of a movement that she was motivated to turn her head towards him. Thank goodness the lights were down, because when she opened her eyes it wasn’t to a glaring light but to subdued hues – warm wood ceiling, indirect lighting, and as her vision cleared, to the bearded face of a man that didn’t quite seem right to her. 

Was it the alcohol? Or the lighting? She couldn’t really say, but she knew something was off with him as her eyes drifted shut once again and all awareness floated far, far away from her.

• ❤ •

 Sandor had never done this before. 

He had waited ten minutes to find out where Brunette had gone, but when she didn’t return and Bronn had to shut the doors he released Sandor from work for the night and sent him out to the parking lot.

It didn’t take much to pop open his door with one hand and slide the woman onto the passenger seat of his truck. Keeping her propped up with her face against his shoulder, he managed to strap her in with the seatbelt tightly enough that it sort of held her upright. With her head back against the seat and her mouth slightly open, he couldn’t help but feel the side of his mouth twitch. 

Was it okay for a man his size, with his demeanor, to think a woman was cute? With her hair a mess, her dress somewhat twisted around her, and him having to arrange her long limbs so he could close the door to the truck, he might have even gone so far as to call her adorable.

Gorgeous, but also adorable. And very, very drunk. Like a gangly puppy that he was now in charge of taking care of for the evening.

It took about twenty minutes to drive to her address – an apartment building on the north edge of the city of Winterfell. 

Then from there it was a slight miracle he was able to juggle her completely relaxed form, hold onto her purse, and find the key to unlock the security door at the front of the building. It didn’t help that he had to look at her often to make sure she wasn’t going to wake up and scream, but to also make sure he wasn’t going to drop her, all the while having to avoid letting his eyes drift down to her cleavage. 

Smooth and pale and so damn soft-looking. If Sandor believed in the gods, he would have cursed them a thousand times over.

• ❤ •

The sound of her apartment door crashing shut  – because obviously maintenance was never going to fix the closing mechanism – brought Sansa back out of her stupor for a bit. 

She was home. That surprised her, but it also calmed her. Now-familiar arms still cradled her, and as the gentle jostling of the man slowly ascending the three floors to her apartment shook some awareness into her, it also emphasized the comfort she now found with her cheek resting against his round shoulder.

Step. Step.

Sansa could smell him, and he didn’t smell like Joffrey – as though he had taken the samples of men’s cologne out of the makeup catalogs and rolled around in them like an over excited rat dog. 

No, this man smelled like… Sansa tried to put her thoughts into words, but found it difficult. They were disjointed, seemingly random as they came to her. 

Step.

“Spice,” she murmured, inhaling deeply and hardly minding when the man suddenly came to a halt on the stairs. With a soft rub of her cheek against the worn fabric of his shirt, Sansa sighed.

“Spruce,” she added, and then, “Man.”

After all, wasn’t that what men were supposed to smell like? Not cologne stores that made your nose burn and your eyes water, as someone in her past had been so very fond of. 

No, this man’s scent was subtle, as though cologne might have been an afterthought just that morning so instead what she was smelling was – 

“Skin.”

The man coughed. Or it might have been a clearing of his throat, she couldn’t tell. But he began to move again, apparently writing off her hard-won attempt at conversation.

“And me?” she asked, hoping he knew what she was talking about. She wanted his observation of her; his decision on exactly what it was  _ she _ smelled like. To compare, of course.

Step. Step. 

Every so often her arm dangling behind him would brush his hip, but it felt good to just let it hang there, its movement dictated by the gentle, rhythmic pattern of his steps. Her other hand was resting in her lap, but now she brought it up – another monumental effort – to drape it over his opposite shoulder.

“What do I smell like?” she managed to ask, and then to illustrate what she wanted she inhaled comically deep, filling her nose yet again with his scent and imagining it to be a separate being like his voice; filling her lungs like a mist where in a perfect world she could memorize it, perhaps keep some of it with her, for when he was gone again.

Step.

He grunted, and Sansa smiled, eyes still closed. Her voice was coming back but her comprehension was still suffering from the effects of the alcohol in her stomach and her bloodstream, so when she spoke again she tried and failed to keep the slur at bay.

“Come on. I showed you your’s; now you show me mine.”

Then it happened – he chuckled. And it was such a sweet sound, such a wholesome, enriching, wonderful sound that Sansa wanted to make him do it again. But then it was his turn to speak, and when he did he did so slowly and carefully.

“Sweet,” he said softly.

Step.

“Like… lemon.”

Step.

Sansa smiled and nodded against his shoulder. 

“Lemon cakes are my favorite.”

Step. Step.

He rounded the final landing and the jostling lessened as he walked down the hallway.

“Yes,” he agreed, turning his face towards the crown of her head and inhaling, though not quite as dramatically deep as Sansa had done. That he was being gentle and not so obvious made her smile, as did what he said before she felt the comforting darkness descending once again.

“Like lemon cakes."

• ❤ •

There was that moment when he laid her down on her bed and her eyes had come open again, and he was certain that –  _ that _ – would be the moment she would scream. But in the soft light of the bedside lamp she merely looked up at him, her eyes as glassy as the man at the bar, brilliant blue beneath arching auburn brows.

She smiled at him, and Sandor felt his heart melt at the sight.

Her hand lifted from the bed and she cupped his cheek, low enough that he could feel the heel of her hand pressed into his beard but high enough that her fingertips skated over scarred skin. And she whispered, her smile fading just the slightest as her eyes roamed over the side of his face that her fingers explored.

“This must have been awful,” she said softly, so quietly that he thought for sure he must have misheard her. But the touch of her fingers was so soothing, so calming, that he found he had to clear his throat as he pulled away and dragged a blanket over her dress-clad form.

“Goodnight Sansa,” he attempted in a whisper, though even to him his voice was rough. 

Her replied, “Goodnight,” was only uttered once her eyes had drifted closed and he was reaching for the lamp.

Everything was quiet when he left the apartment, locking the door behind him. The horizon was glowing faintly, signalling the coming sunrise, and as he pulled back onto the road Sandor’s stomach growled a reminder that he hadn’t yet been home to have dinner. A diner was easier, so he pulled into an obscure dive down the street from the drunk girl and ordered an early breakfast.

Oldies played faintly on the stereo system but the bar across the street was clearly blaring “Closing Time” as their respective drunk crowd slowly dispersed. He watched as he ate his eggs and toast, noting silently through the dried water spots on his window the couples who leaned on each other, clearly familiar, and the ones who tentatively held hands or didn’t touch at all.

Were they hook-ups? Did they have a few drinks, one approach the other, and come to some sort of clandestine agreement of whose home they would retreat to for a night  – or early morning, rather – of sex with a stranger?

The thought was still on his mind later, after leaving a hefty tip for the kind but bored waitress, when he climbed the steps to his own two-bedroom apartment. Empty as always, he was greeted by the light of his silent TV which he always told himself he left on for his dog, Stranger. The scruffy Scottie hardly glanced up from his plush bed by the wall when Sandor leaned back against the headboard of his bed. 

Without the sound on the TV he could clearly hear the harsh cough coming through the paper-thin wall, his old neighbor likely chain smoking a midnight snack. Had he not quit years ago Sandor figured he would likely be doing the same thing. But as he no longer indulged in the activity, he was left alone with nothing but a sleeping dog and his thoughts to keep him company.

There were a million things he could have been doing; namely, sleeping or working out or doing his week-old dishes. But instead of doing any of them he simply replayed his entire evening over and over, starting with knowing he likely wouldn’t have done anything differently, even if he’d had the chance.

After all, she was a goddess with red hair, but one whose companion had abandon her, leaving her alone and defenseless in her inebriated state. Watching over her had been Sandor merely doing his job, yes – but it was also more than that.

She would have been ripped apart by the sharks prowling that room, like the one who caught her in his sights and eventually in his jaws when the dance floor began to empty. It was a natural reflex – a protective instinct of the alpha male to guard the female – that had driven Sandor onto the floor to defend her honor. And using every ounce of alpha he possessed, he was glad to see his tactics paid off immediately.

Watching that creep slink away with his tail tucked between his legs like the bested suitor he was had been oddly satisfying to Sandor. 

But then the rest of the evening…

Holding her in his arms, bringing her home, that strange conversation with the delirious woman as she leaned into him and  _ smelled _ him…  _ Gods _ , that had never happened before. 

How could something as inane as a woman sniffing him turn him on so much?

He had doubled down on his resolve that she needed to be shielded from the scum of the world when she innocently inquired as to what he thought  _ she _ smelled like.

A memory of red panties flashed through his mind in that moment and he’d very nearly stumbled over the next step in the stairwell.

But instead he managed to stay upright by tilting his head to inhale the fragrance emanating from her hair, pleased to find it was as pleasant as she apparently thought of his own scent. Though he was glad when they reached the top of the stairs and he could distract himself from the mounting attraction to her by fumbling with her key, and ending with depositing her on the bed he found at the back of the apartment.

Thinking back now to the moment she had cupped his cheek, Sandor raised his hand to touch his face, remembering the feel of her soft, warm hand against his skin. More emotions rushed through him as he closed his eyes to relive the moment.

Comfort; that someone had finally seen him – someone other than Bronn and Margaery – and wasn’t repulsed by the sight of his face.

Gratitude; that even for those few moments with the woman he didn’t know, she had given him a gift he would hold close to his heart forever.

And hope; that maybe, possibly, someday – he just might meet someone willing to look at him like that every day, for the rest of their days.

• ❤ •

To say waking up fully dressed in her own bed, feeling just slightly worse for wear, and with the hallway light on outside her door was an oddity she hadn’t expected, was an understatement.

Reaching up to rest her cool hand against her warm forehead, Sansa laid still while the memories of the previous evening came flooding back one by one.

_ Arya _ . She was going to have to call the brat and see where the hell she had gone. After Arya disappeared, Sansa vaguely remembered finding her drink empty and not having her sister to bring her a new one.

Although, in the dim light of day coming through the crack in her curtain, she realized with a clearer head that yet another drink probably hadn’t been a wise decision.

She remembered somehow finding herself at the dance floor and dancing, sometimes singing, until suddenly there was no one left and there was… a man. A tall man, dark, with long brown hair – 

No! He was  _ after _ the one who came up to paw her. Sansa could see it somewhat clearly in her mind; turning to confront the jerk who thought he could dance so close to her but then falling back to the dance floor. He was descending on her when the other man intervened.

A shiver went up Sansa’s spine at the size of the man who appeared more beast than human, who growled at the jerk in a deep, menacing voice that faded to nothing when she realized she had likely passed out on the floor.

But she remembered hearing the voice again, though not quite as mean. She remembered –  _ good gods _ — she remembered him carrying her. Strong arms, broad chest, holding her while talking to someone else as though she weighed no more than a bucket of feathers. 

And the rest was a blur, until the moment he had hovered over her in the bed. Sansa’s heart rate ticked up at the thought of a strange man in her apartment, and yet she knew – she  _ knew _ with all her heart, somehow – that he hadn’t done anything untowards or inappropriate. 

Hadn’t taken advantage of a drunk woman.

Hadn’t brought her back to his house when he clearly had every opportunity.

She glanced around, seeing her TV still on the dresser, her diamond earrings – a gift from her mother two years ago for her birthday – still hanging on the little wall rack next to her mirror with the rest of her jewelry.

Her expensive bluetooth speaker on the nightstand.

He apparently hadn’t robbed her, which was also good.

But just as soon as she thought the word  _ robbed _ , so too did memories of her despair from the week prior start flashing through her mind, and the words she had used repeatedly in her mind over the days following her breakup with Joff.

_ Robbed _ of five years of her life, with nothing left to show for it other than a broken heart.

_ Robbed _ of the opportunity to marry, have children, spend the rest of her life being a dutiful wife and mother, to enjoy the social engagements that came with being a Baratheon and the life of luxury it would have given herself and their future children.

But then she snorted, feeling not exactly for the first time that being robbed of these opportunities had also provided her with an escape of sorts.

She had escaped a loveless marriage.

She had escaped a lifetime of watching her children be neglected by their father.

She had escaped being tied to a man who insisted on acting like an entitled man-child, flitting from one whim to the next while Sansa remained in the background, waiting for him to come back to roost.

Joff would have seen her public drinking as an embarrassment, and if he hadn’t outright left her at the bar he would have had one of his goons drop her on a couch somewhere – not necessarily at his condo – to sleep off her stupor. He never would have placed her carefully on her own bed, apparently taken off her high heels, and covered her with her blanket.

Nor would he have left a glass of water and two ibuprofen on the nightstand beneath her lamp, as she saw now beside her pillow.

_ Good heavens _ , what sort of man did that?

Filing that away for the time being, she took the proffered medicine and drank the water before slowly rising from the bed, gingerly padding her way to her bathroom so survey the damage.

Her hair was a mess, though not entirely tangled like she had expected. It was just… big… her large curls from the night before having separated into a cloud of red that hearkened back to the generation prior, rather than the sleek, suave hairstyles her generation preferred. Her makeup was smudged, though she hoped that was because she had slept in it and not because she had looked on her rescuer with drunk raccoon eyes as he carried her up the stairs. 

And her dress – hanging too low on one side, the rest of it was uncomfortably twisted around her torso so she unzipped it at her side and stepped out of the offending garment.

About to toss it in the pile of dirty clothes in the hamper, she suddenly flashed back to a conversation that she felt may or may not have been imagined from the night before – a conversation about lemon cakes and… spruce. And spice. 

Good grief, did she really tell him he smelled like a man? Remembering comparing him to Joffrey’s love of cologne, she attempted to tamp down the mortification when she heard herself in her memory telling him he smelled like skin.

Sansa didn’t have to look in the mirror to know she was probably blushing down to the tips of her toes.

But even as she thought it, she lifted the dress to her face and inhaled, smelling on it her own light perfume that she always used sparingly, and then another oddly familiar yet foreign scent.

Spruce, and spice, and man.

The embarrassment washed over her in a fresh wave, and yet she found herself reluctant to put the dress down when it was time to turn the water on for a shower.

• ❤ •

Sansa’s purse was on the edge of her kitchen counter, with her money still inside and her keys laying beside it. Her phone was off to the side, and there next to it she found a piece of scratch paper from her computer desk with a phone number written on it in a masculine scrawl, over a name. 

Sandor.

Freshly washed, with the blissful relief of ibuprofen coursing through her veins now instead of alcohol, she sat with a piece of toast at her small kitchen table and stared at the slip of paper. She resisted the urge to lift it to her face to smell it, though she wondered if everything about the man smelled of him.

Dark brown hair, she remembered. Beard; thick from what she could picture of him. There had been no skin showing through the fullness of it, either above or below his mouth. But the sides – one had extended up, smoothly changing to sideburn and disappearing beneath the long strands that fell to his shoulder.

But the other side had been different, it’s beard coming to a sudden halt below an expanse of skin that had at first seemed bare, devoid of hair for some odd, unexplained reason.

Feeling flushed, Sansa was reminded clearly of the moment she had lifted her hand to rest against it. Then, as though the tactile memory slammed back into her like a brick wall, she remembered.

Scars. His beard stopped because he was scarred; from the edge of his jaw well up into his hairline. 

She remembered how thankful she had felt in that moment for her savior, but at the same time could feel the remorse that a man as nice as he, had gone through something terrible enough to disfigure him in what could only have been a brutally painful, horrifically tragic way.

Warmth flooded through her for him, and she recognized it as the same warmth she had felt the night before, when he had still hovered over her before tucking her into bed.

This was no immature  _ boy _ who used his advantage to profit from someone else’s misfortune.

No, this was the type of  _ man _ of whom her father had spoken – brave and gentle and strong.

Without hesitating, she picked up her phone, turned on the screen, and rapid fire dialed his number before pressing the call button.

If anything, he deserved a thank you. And maybe a coffee. 

• ❤ •

Sandor watched as his phone lit up beside the newspaper he was reading. It was an unknown number, and for some reason he just  _ knew _ who it was.

So he froze, and let it go to voicemail.

And then like a coward, instead of calling her back, he anxiously dialled his voicemail to listen to her message.

“Hey, uh… Sandor. This is Sansa, the girl from the bar last night…” She paused, but then he figured she was worried about being cut off so the rest came out in a rush. “Look, thank you so much for taking care of me last night. I really don’t know what happened to my sister but she’ll be hearing from me later on, I assure you. But I wanted to see if I could thank you properly, with a coffee? Maybe today? If you’re not busy? Because… what you did was just really, really… great. So… yeah.”

She didn’t sound hesitant as she relayed her number and said goodbye, so Sandor chided himself for succumbing to even the barest hint of inadequacy.

She had seen him. She had  _ touched his scars _ , for fuck’s sake. And he knew from her license that she wasn’t some young college co-ed, but a woman barely a decade younger than him who likely knew her own mind and who obviously called of her own volition.

Setting the phone down, he carefully folded the newspaper and set it aside.

He could do this. He could call her back, accept her invitation, and be a man about it. He could, definitely. He just had to… mentally prepare himself.

So he showered, ran a comb through his hair, checked with scissors that his mustache wasn’t slowly crawling into his mouth, and dialled her number, clearing his throat just before her sweet voice picked up on the other side, “I’m so glad you called me back.”


End file.
